The invention relates to improvements in hand held devices. More specifically, the invention relates to improvements in handheld devices to facilitate data input during user interaction with the devices.
Handheld devices have increased in popularity with recent advances that have allowed different technologies to be integrated into a single device. So-called personal digital assistants (PDAs) are now available with wireless capabilities and some cell phones come with PDAs built in to the unit. Short message service (SMS) applications are proving popular in GSM-based cellular systems and e-mail and Internet browser applications will be used even more in the future as third generation services become established.
While there are plainly many advantages to high integration, there are also problems with keeping the devices small enough to be truly xe2x80x9chandheldxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cportablexe2x80x9d. Devices supplied with full QWERTY keyboards tend to be large and bulky in order to accommodate keys that sufficiently large for fingertip actuation. Additional space is also required for a display screen and in many cases this has been provided by way of a so-called xe2x80x9cclam-shellxe2x80x9d design, with the keyboard on one side and the display on the other. Devices supplied with a stylus and touch sensitive screen tend to be less bulky but nevertheless have to be of a size adequate to accommodate a screen with both a data entry area and a display area. There is a trade-off between the size of the data entry area and the display area.
With all the other functions that are now available in handheld devices there is an ongoing need to reduce the space needed on a handheld device for data input during user interaction with the device.
The invention addresses the above and related problems.
According to one aspect of the invention there is provided a handheld electronic device comprising: a housing; a plurality of input keys disposed around the housing locations where fingers will naturally land when the handheld device is being held in an average-sized hand; and a processing circuit within the housing and coupled to the plurality of keys, the processing circuit being responsive to actuation of a selected combination of at least one key by generating data representing a character.
According to another aspect of the invention there is provided a handheld electronic device comprising: a housing; a plurality of input keys disposed around the housing at locations where fingers will naturally land when the handheld device is being held in an average-sized hand; an interfacing and processing unit coupled to the plurality of keys and responsive to actuation of a selected combination of at least one key by generating data representing a character and processing said data; and a display for displaying a representation of said character represented by the data generated by the processing circuit, and wherein the processor is arranged to control the display to display an indication of characters that will be input if a combination of one or more input keys is actuated by the user.
According to a further aspect of the invention there is provided an apparatus for generating input data, the apparatus comprising: a housing; a display screen mounted to the housing; a plurality of input keys proximate to the display screen and disposed around the housing at positions that facilitate respective actuation by and least some digits on a single hand; a processor, coupled to the input keys and to the display screen, for generating data representing symbols for display on the display screen, which symbols identify combinations of at least one input key corresponding to respective characters from a character set, the processor responding to simultaneous actuation of an identified combination by generating digital, data representing the corresponding character displayed on the display screen.
The invention also provides a data input device comprising: a housing; a plurality of user operable input means disposed about the housing; data generating means for generating display data defining graphics identifying combinations of at least one of said user operable input means and a set of characters respectively associated with said combinations; displaying means mounted to said housing and coupled to said processing means for displaying said graphics defined by said display data; and generating means coupled to the plurality of user operable input means and responsive to actuation of a selected combination of at least one user operable input means by generating data representing the character identified by the displayed graphics.
The invention further provides a method of generating input data using an input device in which a plurality of input keys are disposed around a display screen, the method comprising: generating display data defining graphics identifying combinations of at least one of said input keys and a set of characters respectively associated with said combinations; displaying said graphics defined by said display data; and responding to actuation of a selected combination of at least one user operable input means by generating data representing the character identified by the displayed graphics.